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Film

May 21, 2018

Gold was one of America's best known graphic designers for his many movie poster designs over the past 70 years. He clocked up over 2,000 during the 20th and 21st century. He set the graphic style agenda for film industry promotion.

March 17, 2018

If you enjoyed Ruben Östlund’s 'Force Majeure' then you will like his new outing, 'The Square'. I say enjoy but perhaps endure is a better word, as this new film runs for two and a half hours. Like 'Force Majeure' it starts with a dramatic event involving a mobile phone. In this case an elaborate street theft of the main protagonist, one Christian, (Claes Bang), a high profile curator of a Stockholm based contemporary art museum. The event spirals him into a personal catastrophe forming the spine of the story.

To a large part, the film is a biting satire on the world of conceptual art, with its convoluted post rationalisations on art in the form of impenetrable curatorial speak, we've all read it in gallery brochures. The film opens with journalist Anne, (Elizabeth Moss) quoting back to an American artist, Julian (Dominic West) a statement he made about his work that Anne had difficulty in understanding. The response from Julian is highly amusing.

Peppered throughout the 156 minutes are more hilarious moments of ridicule on the art establishment. Another such is when an alarmed member of staff nervously tells Christian that one of the twenty-odd regimented piles of pristine gravel displayed in one of the many stark gallery spaces has been accidentally destroyed by a cleaner. What to do? " Should we call the insurers?". "No," says Christan, "Where is the gravel now?". "In the basement". "Okay, I will rebuild it, no one will know".

In addition to this art finger pointing, there is a myriad of themes from the politically correct and inclusive nature of Swedish society to the elite wealthiest patrons of the corporate world. And the seeming epidemic of homeless people on the streets of Stockholm to the animalistic possibilities in mankind. It takes a lot of knitting together and keeps you thinking long after the film. But, and there usually is one, like many directors Ruben Östlund has fallen in love with what his cinematographer, Fredrik Wenzel has captured for him. Östlund wants it all up there on the screen for all to see. Unfortunately, in parts, it makes for many unnecessarily lengthy scenes. But for all that like 'Force Majeure,' it is an unusual and highly original work.

January 15, 2018

There’s no doubt about Garry Oldman’s performance as Winston Churchill in Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, but the film itself is a case of style over substance, with the addition of some downright embarrassing moments in the script.

Along with Oldman goes full marks, and no doubt awards, for the outstanding prosthetic designers, cinematography, costumes, and art direction. But what destroyed this film for me was Wright’s overindulgence in visual gimmickry. Endless plan-view zooms, both in and out, of stairwells, aerial shots and bombing. Unnecessary close-ups of the passing objects. Slow-motion panning shots of street scenes showing background extras, looking like background extras being far too self-conscious, along with overly clean period cars, and some of those were post-war models.

The self-consciousness of the extras was heightened by the use of slow motion and car boffins would spot the post-war Ford Anglia (far left). A silly mistake when so many prewar models would have been readily available from enthusiasts.

But far worse were two dreadfully sentimental and questionable scenes. The first is the unlikely close relationship between Churchill and his overly pretty typist/secretary Elizabeth Layton – it smacks of being manufactured by committee.

The rather more glamorous Elizabeth Layton (played by Lily James ) than the genuine Elizabeth below.

The second is an absolutely ludicrous scene when Churchill goes AWOL at a crucial moment when he is being pressured into peace talks with “Herr Hitler” via Mussolini to avert the impending Dunkirk massacre. To help with the taxing dilemma, Winston decides to join “the ordinary people” on an underground train.

"Cor blimey! It's Mr Churchill anall".

The trigger for this event is at the opening of the film, when Winston, cosseted in the back of his chauffeur-driven car, looks out at a bus and says “You know, I have never travelled on a bus”. Fast forward to the end of the film and we have Winston sitting in a crowded tube carriage, complete with Homburg hat and Havana cigar, where he canvasses views on the mood of the country from the ridiculously humble London passengers. It is like a jaunty, forelock-tugging, Enfield/Whitehouse 1940s sketch. Utterly laughable.

"We're with you all the way, Gor bless you Mr Churchill Sir".

Within this lavishness, there could have been a great film. But it is marred by visual over stimulation and a very patchy script.

Bruno Ganz as Hitler in Downfall 2004.

You only have to view Oliver Hirschbiegel’s brilliant film Downfall to see how a serious historical subject can be handled with great skill and subtlety, without an ounce of sentimentality or visual gymnastics, to understand what I am on about. Wright seems to have picked up Stephen Spielberg’s irritating habit of inserting syrup-driven sentimentality into his films. And, incidentally, you’ll find that in Spielberg’s latest The Post.

Often, when directors get to a stage in their careers when they have all the tricks made available, they tend to want to show them. It reminds me of a quote from the late great advertising man Bill Bernbach, who warned creatives not to gild the lily:

“Be provocative. But be sure your provocativeness stems from your product... Merely to let your imagination run riot, to dream unrelated dreams, to indulge in graphic acrobatics is not being creative. The creative person has harnessed his imagination. He has disciplined it so that every thought, every idea, every word he puts down, every line he draws... makes more vivid, more believable, more persuasive...”

I think Bill knew what he was talking about. Less is always more, and Darkest Hour could have been a superior film had Joe Wright adhered to that, along with using a sturdy pair of scissors to cut out the duff scenes.

November 25, 2017

As a boy in the 1950s, I was obsessed with the work of Walt Disney and would while away hours copying characters from his latest animated films. A great deal of their magic happens in the beautifully illustrated backgrounds to the action. And one of the most brilliant Disney staff artists responsible for these vistas was Eyvind Earle.

Earle at his studio easel.

Earle was originally born in New York, he moved with his family to Hollywood; at age ten, he started painting. He had his first solo show in France aged 14. He rapidly progressed, always improving his talent and later exhibiting in New York at the Charles Morgan Galleries in 1937, at which the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased a work for its permanent exhibition. In the 1940s, he signed on with the American Artist Group and clocked up 800 Christmas card designs for them.

Then came the job that would put him on the map: he joined Walt Disney to assist on backgrounds. It was here that he was to excel, creating work for a range of popular Disney characters. He first worked on Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom – a short film that picked up an Academy Award in 1953. That pushed him up the Disney ladder, where he worked on Peter Pan, Working for Peanuts, Pigs Is Pigs, Paul Bunyan, and Lady and the Tramp. His later styling and background work on Sleeping Beauty was highly acclaimed.

Top: Earle plotting the storyboard for Sleeping Beauty (1959), followed by some backgrounds being painted by him. Lastly, some finished works complete with their cell overlays.

Earle was selected by Walt Disney to set the style for the long-in-production feature, Sleeping Beauty. However many of the animators actively disliked his art direction and openly protested, but Walt Disney supported Earle to the very end of the production.

After leaving Disney in the mid-1960s, Earle started his own studio, Eyvind Earle Productions, Inc. He produced animated and trailer for the feature film West Side Story, under the close eye of Saul Bass. He also designed a number of TV series trailers. In the mid-1960s. He eventually turned his back on animation to concentrate on painting alone in his studio. Out of this came a myriad of work: oils, watercolours, scraperboard, line illustration and sculpture represented by a number of large galleries across the states and he sold a lot of works through theses. But a lot of finished left after his death had never exhibited.

Above a selection of Earle's work. It is evocative of a combination of the work of Frank Newbold, Grant Wood and Japanese traditional paintings.

He left behind an astonishing body of work that has gained a big following from illustrators and animation artists over the years, inspiring a new generation of creatives.

In 1998, Earle was honoured at the 26th Annie Awards with the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement in the art of animation. And in 2015, Earle was inducted as a Disney Legend. His daughter, Kristin Thompson, accepted the award on her father’s behalf.

March 13, 2017

The first was the much-applauded Elle, directed by Paul (Basic Instinct) Verhoeven. It stars the superb Isabelle Huppert playing Michèle Leblanc, a wealthy CEO of a games company. She is an icy, emotionless character, akin to the part Huppert played in The Piano Teacher (2001).

The film opens on the horrifically violent rape of Leblanc by a masked attacker, after which Leblanc does not, as one would expect, report the attack to the police. Instead, she calmly sweeps up the broken glass, takes a bath and then phones for takeaway sushi as if nothing had happened. Next day at work, we see her reviewing a screening of a new game with her creative team. She heavily criticises it for not having enough sex and violence and demands more. At this point, I realised that Leblanc is clearly emotionally desensitised to the actual horror perpetrated on her. We also discover in newsreel flashbacks that her father had committed multiple murders when she was a child. Scenes from the opening rape are repeated during the course of the film, including revised versions where Leblanc imagines she defended herself more successfully. I’ll stop there.

Now, this film was given five stars by The Guardian. I have never trusted their film critic since he awarded five stars to Exhibition, my all-time most-hated British film. To give five starts to Elle is utterly shameful: it is a grossly misogynistic piece of work from a director who seems to relish in the kind of exploitative brutality depicted in this film. I am astonished that Isabelle Huppert, an actress of enormous talent, actually agreed to make it.

The second film, which, by coincidence, also has an attack on a woman at its heart, was The Salesman,written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, one of the most outstanding talents in cinema working today. His latest offering rightly earned him the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Film of 2016. His earlier work, The Past and A Separation are masterpieces in observing the minutiae of the human condition. The Salesman is yet another wonderfully sensitive piece.

The story reflects Iranian culture and the necessity for directors to work within the guidelines of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. But the restrictions in no way hamper Farhadi’s work; if anything, they enhance it.

The main protagonists of The Salesmen are husband and wife Shahab Hosseini as Emad and Taraneh Alidoosti as Rana. Due to a violent earth tremor, they are forced to vacate their apartment. With nowhere for them to go, a friend from the theatre company where they are both taking part in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman offers them a temporary apartment that, unbeknown to them, was formerly occupied by a prostitute. After the effort of moving in, Emad pops out to get some food supplies while Rana takes a shower. The door buzzer sounds and Rana, thinking that it is Emad returning, just presses the entrance door release and leaves the apartment door ajar. The camera holds on the door slowly swinging open. We cut to Emad on the street carrying groceries. He climbs the stairs to the apartment and notices some blood on one of the steps and further up bloody footprints. He rushes into the apartment, calling for his wife: she is not there and the bathroom is blood splattered. We discover that Rana has been taken to hospital by the downstairs neighbours, where she is having her head stitched. Rana refuses to involve the police and shuts down emotionally, becoming fearful of being left alone. Despite Emad’s appeal to Rana to tell him what happened, she refuses. Emad finds a bunch of keys, some money and a bloody sock while surveying the scene of the attack and he becomes obsessed with finding the perpetrator. And so begins a wonderful tangle of events that touch on the plight of women in Iranian society and the shame attached to reporting crimes of this nature. “Better to forget it”, say their neighbours. The keys left in the apartment lead Emad to a pickup truck parked in the street below and eventually lead him to the individual responsible for the attack. What follows I won’t reveal, as I wouldn’t want to spoil it.

Farhadi’s film, in comparison to Verhoeven’s, is clear: there are no scenes of the actual attack, as it is left to our imagination. Farhadi handles his film with a quiet, beautifully understated elegance, coupled with supremely intelligent storytelling. And the performances from Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti are totally believable, making for a compelling experience. Farhadi is a wonderful writer-director creating work that cuts through geographical barriers. His films are imbued with empathy and his subjects are universal. Give me the restraint of Farhadi over the excesses of Verhoeven any day.

March 05, 2017

I should have trusted my instincts when confronted by the poster (above) for this film. It smacked of 'design by committee'. But no, I sat through the hour and thirty odd minutes hoping for something special, think 'The Jewell in The Crown'. Instead, it was a sort of Downton Abbey comes to Bollywood with the all important tragic tangled love interest set against a country in bubbling turmoil between Muslim and Hindu factions, but all happening at the same time.

In 1947 Lord Mountbatten (Hugh 'Downton' Bonneville) as Britain's last Viceroy of India was charged with overseeing the peaceful handover and partition of India. On his arrival, along with wife Edwina (Gillian Anderson) and daughter (Lily Travers), we are thrust into the obscene opulence afforded to the British rulers. So amazed is Mountbatten's wife by Viceroy House she remarks, "It makes Buckingham Palace seem like a bungalow". Very quickly she sets about seemingly befriending the below stairs staff in that rather aloof superior manner that only the British can muster.

On the surface, it should have worked as Director, Gurinder Chadha has family connections with the events that took place seventy years ago via her grandmother. But like the poster, I sensed the hand of the powerful co-funding parties with their differing interests.

To my mind, the manipulation by Churchill over the partition boundaries, without Mountbatten's knowledge, was too shallowly dealt with. Had the screenplay been written by say, David Hare, he would have had scenes of swirling cigar smoke with Churchill plotting India's carve up. Hare has an uncanny ability to produce just the right dialogue for the British ruling class and he would have certainly struck a blue line through the contrived romantic interest. And together with Hare, I'd put Oliver Stone in the director's seat to transformed this into an intelligent riveting film. Sadly what we are given is an attempt to please everyone and failing on all fronts. I think it was clearly an overly ambitious production for Chadha.

And on a nit-picky point, the film is peppered with bad art department details, inaccurate period newspaper typography, continuous tone images rather that 65 dot screen, Obviously resin cast statues rather than marble and a plethora of really badly spoofed up classical paintings. It may seem petty but it is these little details that help to make a film believable.

Meanwhile, the love story (ultimately for a BBC1 audience) takes centre stage at the end of the film with the most syrupy, sentimental and I have to say laughable outcome.

February 16, 2017

I went to see the French Canadian film, 'It's Only the End of the World' (2016) directed and screenplay by Xavier Dolan. I knew little about it but was overwhelmed by its emotional intensity.

Louis (Gaspard Ulliel), a writer living in Paris returns to his hometown in Canada after a 12-year absence. He has some devastating news to deliver. But from the moment he arrives back into the family, he is thrust into a maelstrom of jealousy, resentment, loss and suppressed anger, centring on his absence and professional success.

The cinematography by André Turpin is stunning and really helps the spiralling emotion along with beautifully considered sound design and score by Jean-Pierre Arquié

A film about the dynamic of family hits you where you really feel it. It is a quintessentially wonderful French film and a real gem of cinema.

January 31, 2017

I raved about 'Manchester by the Sea' earlier this month, for which I sincerely hope that both director/writer Kenneth Lonergan and actor Casey Affleck receive BAFTAs and Oscars – we'll see.

It made me curious about Kenneth Lonergan's work. Since 2000, he has only directed three films: 'You Can Count on Me', 'Margaret' and 'Manchester by the Sea'. Most of his career has been as a playwright and screenwriter. But his ability as a highly individual director is, to my mind, astonishing. I picked up a copy of 'Margaret' (2011), his second film. I watched it last night and it was the 186 min extended-cut version. I was completely blown away by the power of the film. It is an exemplar in in-depth storytelling. A superb script with astonishing performances, masterful editing and beautiful cinematography.

Mark Raffalo as Maretti

What makes Lonergan's work so special is the space he allows around the main drive of the story. He creates seemingly throwaway moments surrounding the daily lives of the characters and their environment – a passing snatched conversation, an elderly person negotiating some difficult steps, helicopters crisscrossing the Manhattan skyline, or a slow pan across an apartment building, glimpsing the different worlds going on inside. All of this gives the film a mesmerising atmosphere and room to think.

Like 'Manchester By the Sea', 'Margaret' has a catastrophic event at its core that has a profound effect on the main protagonist, Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin). We witness her spiral into an obsessive state that engulfs her life. She is a bright, quick-witted, articulate middle-class 18-year-old student living with her divorced actress mother and younger brother in New York while coping with the long distance between her and her LA-based commercial director father.

Kenneth Lonergan (right) on location with Anna Paquin and Matt Damon

The New York setting could easily be the world of Woody Allen or Wallace Shawn, but it very much has the unique fingerprint of Lonergan. It is a densely beautifully scripted film with some intense collisions of characters that are exhilarating and exhausting to witness. The performances of Anna Paquin and J. Smith-Cameron, who plays Joan Cohen, Lisa's mother, are outstanding.

Like Terrence Mallick and earlier Stanley Kubrick, Lonergan uses existing music, rather than commissioning a complete score. This can be a little patchy, but at times it creates some very poignant moments.

J. Smith-Cameron and Anna Paquin.

I am now moving on to watch. 'You Can Count on Me'. Lonergan is a wonderful find and I look forward to much more from him. He is currently writing a TV mini-series of E. M. Forster's 'Howards End' for the BBC.

January 09, 2017

Of the many things I’ve seen and heard this year, the following, in my view, are the best, with a few of the worst that really infuriated me.

TV

The Icelandic noir crime series Trapped was one of the better crime productions, not only for its creepy storyline but also for the wonderful, relentless, snow-swept locations.

Happy Valley. Series 2 was as magnificent as the first series, with consistently outstanding writing from Sally Wainwright and wonderful performances from the entire cast, especially Sarah Lancashire.

Fleabag. An amazingly revealing and original series from writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It is funny, edgy and very moving.

Going Forward. Another outstanding writer/comedian is Jo Brand, and Going Forward was funny and touching in equal measures.

Films

Joachim Lafosse’s, L'Économie du Couple (After Love). An intense observation of a marriage breakdown performed with utter commitment by the film’s two leads Bérénice Bejo and Cédric Kahn. More

20th Century Women is set in Santa Barbara in the late ’70s and focuses on Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening), a wonderfully eccentric single mother and divorcée living in a dilapidated but charmingly eclectic house where she lets two rooms to help make ends meet in order to bring up her son as a decent human being, with much angst and hilarity on the way. Written and directed by ex-graphic designer Mike Mills, whose earlier film Beginners was a delight too. More

I, Daniel Blake is Ken Loach’s precisely targeted indictment of our welfare state. It is Loach at his very best. More

Following A Single Man, director Tom Ford follows up with Nocturnal Animals and proves that he is to be taken seriously in this nearly perfect thriller. More

Manchester by the Sea. An incredibly powerful and moving story of loss, with an Oscar-deserving performance from lead Casey Affleck.

Ethel and Ernest. The story of Raymond Briggs’ young life. Despite it being an animated film, it pulls no punches. Humorous, beautiful, moving and tragic. Watch it

Product

Terence Woodgate's elegant Solid - Carrara marble table lamp.

Theatre

Yerma. The Young Vic restaging of Federico Garcia Lorca’s 1934 tragic masterpiece ‘Yerma’, reset in 21st-century hip London society. With two standout performances from Billie Piper (in the main role as ‘Yerma’) and Brendan Cowell as her husband. More

The Almeida’s stunningly brilliant production of Uncle Vanya. Imaginatively staged and directed by Robert Icke, with a wonderful cast headed by Paul Rhys.

Architecture

The Switch House Tate. One of the most inhospitable, dismal architectural experiences of 2016. Bleak and cold, with no attempt to create an uplifting experience for the visitor. More

Graphics/Branding

Two diabolical rebrands appeared on the scene. First was the hideous Addison Lee courier and car service. It could have been so good in the right hands.

British Steel introduced a shamefully embarrassing new identity, as opposed to reintroducing David Gentleman’s perfectly thought-out original.

But there was a welcomed and brave move in accepting that an earlier logo from the 1960s still works perfectly. Sean Perkins at North resurrected the baby from the bathwater of the ill-judged Co-operative rebrand of a few years ago.

Nat West's so-called "gentle evolution" of their logo by making what was originally simple complicated. It will be hardly noticed by most but will cost many millions to implement. Such is the insulting disregard that banks have for the public's view of them. More

This is graphic design at its very best: simple, meaningful, intelligent and witty. Created by Paula Scher at Pentagram NYC for The Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada.

Posters

2016 saw another group of inept ‘fine art’ collection of posters, this time for the Rio Olympics. Repeating the dreadful mistake of the 2012 UK Olympics with equally dreadful posters, again headed by Tracey Emin. An insult to all serious poster designers. More

Books

A Life in Letterpress. Alan Kitching’s life work in print. A doorstopper of a book, beautifully illustrated.

Nobrow has published the graphic novel, Audubon that centres on explorer John James Audubon’s ornithological quest across America during the 19th century. Written by Fabien Grolleau and sensitively illustrated by Jérémie Royer.

Advertising

Wales’ Christmas drink-driving campaign, by the Cardiff- based agency Bluegg, underlines the tragic loss of a loved one on Christmas Day.

Art

The Royal Academy of Arts, Abstract Expressionism exhibition was an absolute joy but rather too crowded.

Stamps

Agatha Christie: An intriguing series of six stamps designed by Jim Sutherland and Neil Webb, complete with hidden clues.

Florian Zeller’s award-winning stage play The Father, translated by Christopher Hampton for BBC Radio 3. Centred on a man disappearing into the world of dementia. With a moving performance from Kenneth Cranham.

December 28, 2016

A beautiful Charles Laughton scene from 'Rembrandt', 1936. Just watch how believable and natural he is in this very short clip. Such an unactory actor so subtle and real with a beautiful voice. Click here